Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Injury Paranoia?

I'm putting this post out there because I'm feeling a little crazy at the moment and I'm hoping that maybe someone can relate, or offer wisdom. Lately I’ve been experiencing what I can only describe as “injury paranoia”. It started a couple weeks ago when, after a very successful 14 miler I decided that I wanted to try the whole marathon thing again. I was hoping it was just nerves but it hasn’t really gotten any better.

I’m so terrified that this marathon journey is going to end the same way the last one did… in injury. I’ve been stretching, and foam rolling, and ice-bathing, and taping, and warming up and cooling down every workout as well as strength training my quads, hamstrings, and VMO muscles every week. I’ve been emailing my coach non-stop about tips and tricks to remain injury free, and even wearing an old pair of running sneakers when I run errands rather than my normal flats. I’ve been paying acute attention to every twinge and tightness I feel during any run and taking it easy when in doubt. And yet… I’m paranoid.

Last night I looked at my calendar and realized that I injured myself 13 weeks before my marathon last year. This Sunday will officially BE 13 weeks from THIS marathon. That didn’t help. Then I realized that my flight to Chicago to run this thing will be on Friday the 13th. Then I went for a run at the gym and felt some knee pain but couldn’t tell if it was in my head or not. I could feel it when I focused on it, but not when I didn’t. When I was done running and stopped the treadmill the room started spinning. I was pretty sure I was going to faint. It reminded me of exactly what happened on my 18 miler almost 7 months ago.
I feel like I’m losing my mind. I want to move on and let my injury go. How do you all do it?

7 comments:

Oh dear. Ok, the paranoia stays with me the entire time I am training, and then afterwards too. Having had injuries in the past, has made me hyper-aware of them now. As it turns out, for me, if I get pain that is questionable, its not really anything. If I end up yelling out loud about it? Then its something to work on.

As for the room spinning thing, maybe you need to make sure you are eating right. Getting enough water, electrolytes, carbs? How about sleep? Rest is really key for me. Cutting my sleep short at night, and no naps, makes my recovery very poor.

Get out of my head!!! Girl I am right there with you, I'm a few weeks in and I'm having some weirdness going on as well and I'm having flashbacks of my last training cycle. A part of me wonders if it's just paranoia/gun shy but you just can't be too sure. Keep an eye on it, keep doing what you're doing and if it would help, go visit your doc that helped you through your last injury. Better safe then sorry ya know?!?!? I'm sorry you're stressing, I hope it's nothing and that you can get past this and never look back!

You sound like you are doing all the right things. As I've learned the hard way, strength training various parts of your upper/lower legs is very important to preventing injury. I just got custom insoles for my shoes too and those seem like they are helping my nagging ITB issues. Good luck and just believe in yourself!

You need to distract yourself and not worry so much. After I experienced a stress fracture 4-5 weeks before my 2009 marathon. I was paranoid until the same period before my 2010 race. When it passed I breathed a sigh of relief. Just listen to your body, don't push beyond your limits and try not to think about it. Your feelings are normal!

I've been dealing with this same sort of paranoia. I had a sfx in my right foot 2 years ago and now that I'm training for my 1st marathon (6 weeks to go) my foot is a little achey and I'm freaking, stretching, foam rolling and advil-ing like a mad woman. My advice, just do everything you can to prevent an injury and constantly "test" what you think could be injured. I like the "jump on one foot" test. If it hurts, you might have a problem.Good Luck! And know you're not alone in this!